Is There a Method That Will Mirror a New Part With a New Appearance/Color?

larry_hawes

Thought it was user error but when mirroring a new part the appearance stays the same as if it were 'added' instead of 'new'. Changing the appearance of the original part changes both due to, I assume, the mirror operation.

Changing the appearance of the 'new' mirrored child part does indeed change the appearance but it's an added step and inconsistent with OS's normal 'new' part behavior where each new part has a different appearance attribute.

Thanks

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2lt9IO2fdU

larry_hawes

Perhaps this is intentional behavior?

Konstantin_Sh

I think this is because part patterning operations now also copy part properties and part appearence is one of them

larry_hawes

That seems to be true, but doesn't it also seem inconsistent with the way OS normally treats 'new' parts by giving them a new 'appearance'? I created a mirrored part in a multi part studio and noticed there were 2 parts the same color and I was confused and wondered if I had checked 'new' or 'add' but of course OS had mirrored both the part and the appearance. Seems inconsistent in its behavior but perhaps there are issues I'm not seeing and it is intended to behave this way?

larry_hawes

Perhaps the help files should read, "Onshape creates new parts in a predetermined color palette and rotation of color assignments as parts are created unless that 'new' part is created through the mirror process in which case the new part will retain its original color, confusing the user into thinking that the 'new' mirrored part is not 'new' at all.  

FIXED 

Onshape has a predetermined color palette and rotation of color assignments as parts are created. (You are also able to assign custom colors to parts, explained below.)

As parts are created, they are rendered in a sequence of eight colors, shown below, from left to right, with the sequence starting over on the 9th part:

owen_sparks

larry_hawes said:

That seems to be true, but doesn't it also seem inconsistent with the way OS normally treats 'new' parts by giving them a new 'appearance'? I created a mirrored part in a multi part studio and noticed there were 2 parts the same color and I was confused and wondered if I had checked 'new' or 'add' but of course OS had mirrored both the part and the appearance. Seems inconsistent in its behavior but perhaps there are issues I'm not seeing and it is intended to behave this way?

Hi.  If Onshape adhered to the colour cycle for mirrored parts I'd be writing an IR to exclude that behavior and take on the property of the seed part in the mirror, or at least have it as a checkbox option in the mirror feature!

Cheers, Owen S.

larry_hawes

owen_sparks said:

larry_hawes said:

That seems to be true, but doesn't it also seem inconsistent with the way OS normally treats 'new' parts by giving them a new 'appearance'? I created a mirrored part in a multi part studio and noticed there were 2 parts the same color and I was confused and wondered if I had checked 'new' or 'add' but of course OS had mirrored both the part and the appearance. Seems inconsistent in its behavior but perhaps there are issues I'm not seeing and it is intended to behave this way?

Hi.  If Onshape adhered to the colour cycle for mirrored parts I'd be writing an IR to exclude that behavior and take on the property of the seed part in the mirror, or at least have it as a checkbox option in the mirror feature!

Cheers, Owen S.

Ah yes, thanks Owen, was very curious about how others felt about the behavior and where one finds it inconsistent, others find it desirable, interesting. Do you not rely on 'appearance' to denote a different 'new' part in a studio? Perhaps I depend on that usual behavior too much?

An option would be good but if others don't care then I'll learn to live with it as it's a pretty small issue.

larry_hawes

In this same multi part studio I mirrored all of the parts around a central plane and all of the 'new' parts retained their original colors which I didn't notice but was a really good thing. If they had all changed colors it would have made me crazy, perhaps making your point?

Can't really see how to have it both ways...

owen_sparks

larry_hawes said:

Ah yes, thanks Owen, was very curious about how others felt about the behavior and where one finds it inconsistent, others find it desirable, interesting. Do you not rely on 'appearance' to denote a different 'new' part in a studio? Perhaps I depend on that usual behavior too much?

An option would be good but if others don't care then I'll learn to live with it as it's a pretty small issue.

Hi Larry.  Thanks for bringing this up, it's always nice to bounce ideas around.  I'm not classically trained in good CAD practices so probably not worth  taking my preferences with much weight. 

a few thoughts in no particular order:-

(a) Personally I don't rely on the colour of new parts at all. In fact I'll sometimes keep parts as one of the default colours so if parts cycle something might not shout "I'm new" if I happen to be actually using the colour deliberately for some parts. This raises the question of how about a setting that creates all new parts in some highlighted colour.  That way we can see at a glance anything that we've not yet saved properties for.

(b) I find adjacent parts of the same material to be a visual problem.  It's hard to tell sometimes if we're looking at one part or many.  In this instance I tent to use the setcolor custom feature that @ilya_baran was kind enough to supply.  When coupled with a configuration with options "As Real World Colours" or "High Definition" colours that can make the design clearer.

Real:-

High Contrast:-

For more control instead of suppressing the "set colour" feature you could instead specify specific alternate colours for each view mode.

Cheers,

Owen S.

larry_hawes

I consider my skill level in all things CAD to be low at best and rely on my internal logic and sensibilities to understand CAD software behavior, most of the time to my detriment. I really appreciate you chiming in as having only a singular look at things is never healthy. I can see both sides of the behavior described in the OP and will adjust my behavior to follow...

owen_sparks

Sure thing

brian_brady

How about the addition of a "set appearance" button in any panel that creates a new part? Clicking the button opens the existing set appearance panel without closing the part creation panel (such as part mirror). Accepting or canceling the appearance setting takes the user back to the part creation panel at which they started. Food for thought.